KAITAG, Textile Art from Daghestan
exhibition at the Sakip Sabanci Museum, Emirgan, Istanbul
19 April to 19 August 2007



9
Earthquake

Kaitag region, south-west Daghestan
18th century
72 x 108 cm
silk embroidery on cotton

The embroiderer has created an image of the omnipresent Great Caucasian mountains. In Daghestan, the frequent earthquakes sometimes swallow up entire villages, as was the fate of Kazanitsi in 1972. They also reveal the geological layers formed by the upheavals of the earth's crust. Such physical surroundings may well have possessed the subconscious dreams of the embroiderer to evoke this stylised image of the creation of a primal mound surging out of the firmament, scattering water or lightning and a plethora of moving forms. The freely drawn outlines are filled with nine colours of laid and couched silk. The small motifs are picked out in a single thread stem stitch, while the larger areas are outlined in the broader reverse double chain stitch.

 

       
return to: Kaitag, Textile Art from Daghestan - A Selection
 

text and images © Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul
and textile-art, London, 2007:
not to be reproduced without permission